


One Always True Thing

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Light BDSM, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, fic import
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:16:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  Written for a prompt at Poor Man's Sinfest requesting Chris/Karl, D/s, <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/spellsunbind/9143.html?thread=193207#t193207">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Always True Thing

Title:  One Always True Thing  
Author:  blcwriter  
Rating:  R  
Warnings:  Dom/sub, mild bondage, no actual sex, aka porn!fail.  
Summary:  Written for a prompt at Poor Man's Sinfest requesting Chris/Karl, D/s, [here](http://community.livejournal.com/spellsunbind/9143.html?thread=193207#t193207).

When he gets in from the airport and drops his bags inside the door, the first thing he sees on the hall table is a note—heavy white paper, bold black script, what his Gram would call “an old-fashioned hand.” It’s actual cursive, real handwriting set down with an old fountain pen, the wide nib prescribing thick words whose meaning leaves no room for guessing. It’s definitive, that writing.

So is the message. His pulse beats like a war drum as he reads.

_Leave your keys, wallet and shoes by the door—hang up any jacket you’re wearing in the hall closet. Take your bags to the bedroom and leave them by the bureau. Do not look at the bed. Then go to the kitchen and look at the island._

With a tired, shuddering sigh, he picks up his carry on and his one garment bag, just a few suits to supplement the things he always leaves here because he’s in LA enough these days to warrant buying the house and living a life that is in no way a duplicate of what’s back in New Zealand.

Having followed instructions, he finds himself in the kitchen—there’s another note on the island, more blinding white, heavy paper, more stark black direction in that clear, concise hand.

_Drink the beer and heat up the plate of food in the fridge. Eat slowly. Give yourself at least twenty minutes. There’s a DVD already in the TV on the wall you can watch that’ll bring you up to date on the sports scores. When you’re done, leave your dirty things in the sink and go in to the bathroom._

It’s Mackeson’s stout, two bottles of it, and a huge plate with meatloaf and gravy and mash to pop into the microwave while he eats the plain iceberg wedge slathered in bleu cheese dressing that’s got center stage in the fridge. It’s not healthy, but after the invariably long and horrible flight that’s always involved in coming back to LA, the comfort food is just what he needs. The DVD’s a hand-compiled group of clips of the area teams and the NHL general standings, since Karl can’t really do more than make shitty small talk about basketball and American football, but hockey—that’s something else. He’ll take any Kings tickets he can lay his hands on, much less get to any game in any other American city that’s running while he’s out on a press tour.

He finishes the last bite of his food as the DVD ends, and notes with a slow blink that the DVD was twenty-five minutes long. A warm bit of pleasure blooms in his chest, that just going along got him to where he was told he should be. His pulse thrums a deep note again as he moves to the bathroom.

The welcome and wanted and needed note lies next to the sink, and all his favorite American toiletries, the ones it costs too damned much to have shipped to Auckland, just on damned principle, fill the counter and medicine cabinet.

_Take a fifteen minute shower—set the timer, turn the hot water up to the mark set on the tile. Shave with the new brush and razor and soap in the cabinet. When you’re dried off, you can look at the bed and read the note there._

He sheds his clothes gratefully, the fourteen hours’ worth of travel hitting the floor in rumpled cotton that’s no longer clean and comfortable, just stiff and sweaty from flying in too small a space, even flying first class, a luxury he didn't need to be told to take for himself.

The water’s set so much hotter than he would choose for himself, and the first few minutes he can’t help but gasp at the heat and the steam of it, but he forces himself under the spray until the scald fades and instead he feels pink and new in his skin, languid and practically boneless as he breathes in the steam and the water beats on tired muscles cramped from sitting too long. When the timer rings, he shuts the water off slowly, wanting to stay underneath until he evaporates or something else silly, but that’s not the direction and the written words tug him like a leash, their stark clarity a draw forward on a path he no longer needs to ask why he follows. It's enough to know he wants to be wherever he's led.

He steps out and dries himself off, then uses the new badger hair brush to lather on the lavender soap before he uses the shiny, ridiculous quadruple blade razor that works miles better than the kit he buys himself. The green herbal smell of the soap goes to his head as he swirls the brush over the stubble covering his cheeks and his chin. By the time he’s done shaving and really looks at himself in the mirror, the bags under his eyes and the grey tint of his skin after he travels are gone. The face he sees is pink-cheeked—younger—expectant. He sets the shaving gear back in its place, cleans up the sink, puts the clothes in the hamper—neatness is something that doesn’t need to be mentioned, not anymore—and heads into the bedroom, looking for the first time at the bed.

It’s been made with fresh sheets, crisp white and blue striped ones that are new along with large pillows plump in matched cases, a plain navy duvet folded down over the trunk on the other side of the footboard. There’s a last piece of paper, set in the mathematical midst of the bed—he has to crawl up onto the crisp sheets to read it, since the oversized mattress is really too large to let him just lean in and read what is written.

He’s on all fours—hands and knees—as he reads it, and the pulse is pounding through his clean, scalded skin, his full stomach warm and his whole body both lulled and revived by the heat of the shower and the precise order and care of the instructions.

_Pull the blindfold out from under the right-hand side pillow and set the pillows aside on the floor. Bring up the ropes attached to the headboard, and after you’ve put on the blindfold, lie flat on your stomach and slip your hands through the loops. Make sure you pull them just tight enough—if you can finger them open or if you pull them too tight and your fingers start to tingle and hurt, you’ll have to start over. Then wait._

There’s a space, as if the writer hesitated about what to write next, but Karl knows that’s not it. It’s a deliberate space, a pause as intent and purposeful as everything else the writer’s inscribed, and Karl’s meant to think over the next part that’s set in angular script.

_Your word is firelight. Other allowed words are yes, no, more, please, now and Christopher. Noises are permitted. Any other words will be punished. Do not speak until you are spoken to, unless it is firelight. You don’t need permission to come. Do not think as you wait—remind yourself each time you catch yourself thinking of this one always true thing. You are not responsible here._

He finds the blindfold and ropes, black silk and rayon, moves the pillows, pulls the ropes out to the correct angles before he picks up the thick blindfold and ties it tight over his eyes, the pressure making him see roiling red behind shuttered eyelids. Hands on the loops so he doesn’t lose track, he backs away from the headboard until he’s the right distance to slide onto his stomach, the cool sheets crackling and mattress yielding under his body as he inhales—pushes his hands through the loops—inhales again and tugs hard until the ropes slide through the prepared knots and close tight over thick wrists, the binding ropes pulling taut under broad palms that are finally empty.

He doesn’t have to hold anything. He fingers the knots but they’re tight—he won’t have to start over, go to the bureau to open the folded white paper that reads **_If you fail to complete my instructions_** in accusing capital letters.

A smile curves his mouth, the first real one he's felt in weeks-- maybe months. A long sigh soughs into the mattress as he lays his cheek down, his face turned toward the door, ears craned as he waits.

He won’t fall asleep while he waits—he never has and can’t think that he will, ever. There’s too much to look forward to, even as he tries not to predict, tries to lie quiet and still. This time, he lies still and burns ever hotter and higher, the red-black flickering absence of light on the backs of his eyes beating in time with the quickening pulse of his full belly and clean skin and the throbbing erection that sprang to life as soon as he got to the baggage claim area and saw the sign for the car service with his name, printed in bold black script on heavy white paper. The driver might not have known why he had to use that particular sign, nor hand over that particular note-- _Let the driver take you right to the house, follow the instructions I’ve left for you there._ \-- but that didn’t matter.

What matters is this, the one always true thing-- he is not responsible here.

He waits. He reminds himself he is not responsible and floats, listening with every pore in his body until he hears the front door, the thump of sneakers and personal objects set in their place on doormat and table, the pad of sock-clad feet down the hall to the bedroom. He waits as he hears the intake of breath, the long exhale Karl hopes is full of longing and pride. He waits as feet pad to the bathroom and the shower turns on, the sound of water and smell and feel of steam billowing out into the bedroom, making the air sodden and wet like the sky of a hurricane, heavy with portent. He waits as he listens to the creak of the cabinet door and the sounds of a badger hair brush clinking in a bone china mug—inhales and scents lavender soap in wet air, listens as taps run then stop running water and the sounds of shaving continue.

He waits and he burns, pulse hammering through him until all that remains is waiting and need and the words he’s allowed, and then--oh, finally, now-- that ached-after form settles atop him, skin naked and hot from the shower. He can’t see the dusting of dark blonde hair on long, pale muscular limbs. He can’t see blue eyes burning bright with approval. But he can feel his pressure and weight, bearing Karl down like a lowering sky as sure hands test the tautness of rope and of blindfold—it’s more than a welcome, it’s all, pressing him out to fill the bounds of his skin when the all time he’s not here, he’s a black ball curled deep within, never knowing quite where he ends and everyone else begins.

“Are you glad to be home?” comes the voice in his ear, smooth-shaven cheek pressed to his own as the warm rasping baritone defines this, audible black script on heavy white paper, the words spoken here in this bedroom with this rope and blindfold saying what Karl needs to have named for them both— that this, here, is home.

“Yes, Christopher.”

He sighs, feeling complete though it’s not even begun, his homecoming this time, and waits. He is not responsible for what happens once he gets off the plane—he just has to point himself to this modern-day Rome and Chris takes care of the rest.

“Would you like me to begin?”

“Please.”

He waits, on fire with the knowledge and feeling of home.

\--

A/N:  A few people asked for a prequel or a porn-continuation of this.  I'm trying.  I don't know if it'll happen.   



End file.
